1688, Parliament assumes more and more the control of American concerns. Statutes on those subjects multiply. The administration of the colonies becomes a branch of the ministerial government of Great Britain. The development of an imperial as distinguished from an insular policy is begun. The interference of England in colonial affairs became more frequent and the control asserted more extensive than heretofore. … The attitude of the colonists during this period was one of passive rather than active resistance. Parliamentary restrictions were so far evaded as not to be burdensome. … The records show that the burden of opinion in the colonies was jealousy of all government, so far as it operated as a restraint. The interference of government, whether colonial or imperial, was welcomed by the colonists, when it could be used for the advancement of their private or local interests; when larger objects were aimed at, it was if possible ignored or resisted. … The political condition of the colonies was for the first time clearly revealed during the French and Indian war. The history of Germany can furnish no more vivid spectacle of the evils of particularism than does that struggle. … The condition of anarchy and helplessness revealed by the war was such as to convince all the servants of the crown in America that active parliamentary interference was necessary, if the colonies were to be defended and retained as an integral part of the British empire. The fact that the British government, within a reasonable time after the close of the war, proceeded to put this suggestion into execution, implies nothing arbitrary or unreasonable. It had the undoubted constitutional right to do so; and so far as could be seen at the time, expediency prompted in the same direction. But during the century since the Puritan oligarchy of Massachusetts yielded to the supremacy of the crown, the theory of social contract had been fully developed. It had formulated the needs of the opposition in all the European countries to the system of absolutism. It was the theory of government very generally held by the Puritans in both England and America. … This theory, as soon as it was understood, would naturally find general acceptance in the colonies. … The American revolution, as truly as the French, was the outgrowth of the doctrine of natural rights and social contract. By this I mean simply that the doctrine in question formed the theoretical basis of both movements. So far as the American revolution is concerned the proof of this statement is contained in the writings of the patriot leaders at the time, the various state papers that were issued, and the doctrine that was held respecting the right of imperial taxation. No man contributed so much to bringing about the revolution as